“It’s confession time. I don’t hate the Star Wars prequels. Wait. Stop. Don’t close the browser. come closer. I have reasons.”
“There are things about The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith that are indefensible.”
“But I’ve always found a lot to love in the prequels.”
“One of the many reasons I love Star Wars: The Last Jedi is that it redeems the prequels.”
“I loved the world of the prequels because they were movies about prophecy gone wrong.”
“Anakin is a messiah who’s actually an antichrist.”
“Worse, the Jedi aren’t the noble knights of legend,, but a lazy priest class that lets Anakin become Vader.”
“The Last Jedi knows this. Luke Skywalker knows this and he makes damn sure that Rey and the audience learn from the mistakes of the past. It recontextualizes the prequels and reinforces what I loved about them.”
“In the prequels, the Jedi are the worst. They’re an overfed priest class lording over the last days of the decadent Republic from their towers in the sky on Coruscant.”
“Jedi ignorance and incompetence permeates the prequels.”
“Then there’s the midichlorians, the last and best example of how the Jedi lost their way. In The Last Jedi, A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back, the remaining Jedi describe the Force as a spiritual energy that connects all living things. In the prequels, the Jedi use devices to track the level of midichlorians in the blood to help them decide if someone is worth training. Fans have always pointed to this as an inconsistency in the logic of the world, but it makes perfect sense to me.”
“Pseudoscience is the last bastion of a religious order clinging to power. Midichlorians are bullshit and I think the Jedi knew it. They’re using the blood bugs to enforce the Divine right of kings.”
“They need the order to be exclusive, but the Force belongs to everyone.”
“If they can use midichlorian counts to keep out prospective Jedi—regardless of their actual skill or talent with the Force—then they have greater control over who they train and who they exclude.”
“Yoda, Luke, and Kenobi never bring up the midichlorians after the Republic dies because they know this. They know what the Jedi were doing was wrong.”
“Luke Skywalker is The Last Jedi because he’s come to a place in his life where he realizes that the Jedi order must end.”
“He stares directly at the camera in the new movie and tells the audience that the Jedi are hypocrites full of hubris. They didn’t see Darth Sidious coming and they should have. Even Luke knows the Jedi are bullshit.”
“Anakin had to destroy the Jedi so Luke could redeem them”
“The Last Jedi is wonderful for many reasons. It doesn’t try to be Empire Strikes Back, it’s super weird, and it knows puppets are better than CGI characters.”
“It also redeems and recontextualizes the prequels. It does so by rehabilitating the Jedi order by acknowledging its past crimes and working to move beyond them.”
“It doesn’t rewrite or retcon the films fans hate, instead it elevates them to an important place in the cannon.”
“The prequels are movies about a society in decline. The new trilogy is about the rebirth of hope. It’s about learning to believe in legends again. That’s the message of The Last Jedi. Its ultimate act of beauty is to redeem the Jedi order in both the minds of the galaxy and the minds of the fans.”
“The Last Jedi’s final moments were built for every Star Wars fan who wanted to believe the Jedi were the noble knights Obi Wan sold them as in A New Hope.”
“It does not matter that the First Order won the battle because, by simply appearing, Luke has given the galaxy a new symbol.
He’s also given Star Wars fans a story arc that makes sense: The Jedi were heroic knights who had lost their way after a thousand generations guarding the Old Republic. Yoda and Obi Wan were contrite remainders in the original trilogy, beaten Jedi who lived the consequences of their order’s arrogance. Anakin had to destroy the Jedi so Luke could redeem them. The Force created the Skywalkers to balance the force, but it took two generations and three movies series to do it.”
“The final scene of The Last Jedi is of a child slave who gets in trouble for telling his friends the story of Skywalker’s last stand against the First Order. He’s shooed away by his masters and stands outside, looking up at the stars with hope. He turns his broom around and holds it like a lightsaber, his shadow elongated on the ground in the shape of a budding Jedi.”